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DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



RHODE-ISLAND HISTOHICAL SOCIETY, 



ON THE EVENING OF 



ijinrski}, /fliriiarii 1, iU'). 



GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, 

CABINET KEEPER OF THE NORTHERN DISTRICT, HON. MEMB. OF TIHE N. Y. H. S 



PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY 




PROVIDENCE : 

GLADDING AND PROUD 
1849. 






CAMBRIDGE : 

FEINTED EY BOLLES AND HOUGHTON. 



DISCOUHSE. 



Gentlemen of the Historical Society : 

It is not without some serious misgivings, that I venture to 
appear before you this evening. I have been admonished that 
those who have preceded me in the performance of this honorable 
duty, had brought mature reflection to their task, and laid before 
you the results of long and profound investigation. I have felt 
that a few hours, snatched from the engrossing cares of profes- 
sional life, would be insufficient for such preparation as the 
occasion requires ; that there was a kind of rashness in approach- 
ing a subject of such magnitude, when the utmost that I could 
hope to do, would be to touch lightly upon two or three of the 
innumerable questions, which it suggests. But I have also felt 
that there are occasions on which personal feeling must yield to a 
higher sense of duty, and that every one, who professes an inter- 
est in those studies, which form the object of our association, 
must hold himself in readiness to contribute his portion, when- 
ever called for, even though it should prove but Uttle else than 
the widow's mite. I have accepted, therefore, the invitation of 
your committee, not in the vain hope of rivalling that production 
so rich in its illustrations, and so profound in its wisdom, with 
which these anniversaries began ; nor that admirable analysis of 
our Durfee's mind, which, by so singular a fatality, formed the 
subject of the first discourse to which you were called upon to 
listen, after his own eloquent lips had been closed forever. I 
have thought that I should more easily avoid the disadvantages 



of a comparison bj hazarding myself upon a more general field, 
and that a slight sketch of the progress of historical science in 
its connection with the progress of society, would not be alto- 
gether unsuited to the audience and to the occasion. 

Wherever men live in a state of union, the memory of the 
past is preserved, and history, in some form or other, exists among 
them. It may be but a simple tradition, or a rude collection of 
inartificial songs ; it may be little else than a mound, or a shape- 
less pile of stones; or it may have advanced a step nearer to the 
form which it is sooner or later destined to assume, and con- 
tain a series of names and events roughly carved in wood or 
stone. But whatever be its form, the source from Avhich it springs 
is still the same ; that instinctive impulse of the human mind, 
which, overleaping the narrow bounds of space and time, unites 
us with the past by gratitude, and with the future by hope. 

Hence this feeling, hke all those whose source lies deep in 
human nature, is necessarily modified and expanded by the pro- 
gressive development of civilization, and becomes, in its mani- 
festations, the faithful expression of the various phases of social 
life. In its earlier periods little more seems to be aimed at than 
a simple narrative, not written, but recited, not in prose but in 
verse, the natural language of an age of fresh feeling and vigor- 
ous imagination. But if we look closer, we shall find there the 
outlines of a picture of the age, with all its passions and its ten- 
dencies, all that it has accomplished in industry and in art, its 
social progress, its political organization, its intellectual develop- 
ment, and all those precious gems of future greatness, which so 
often lie hidden even from those, who have contributed most to 
their formation. Hence the historic value of the Homeric poems ; 
a value altogether independent of the question of the unity of 
their origin and the reality of the incidents on which they are 
founded. Whether such a man as Homer ever lived or not, may 
well be deemed uncertain. The ancients disputed about his 
birth-place, the moderns deny his existence ; but both ancients 
and moderns agree in accepting the poems which bear his name, 
as accurate pictures of the heroic age of Greece. And what- 
ever conclusion we adopt concerning the events which they pre- 



tend to record, thej are none the less a true expression of the 
feehng to which I have attributed the origm of all history, one 
of simple gratitude for the past and pride in its glory, if those 
events really occurred ; and if not, that necessity which all men 
feel, of connecting themselves with the past, of finding some 
solution there of the more difficult questions of the present, and 
of that still recurring and still mysterious question of origin ; 
something which, if not true to the fact, shall at least be true to 
their conceptions, and give a definite form and positive direction 
to their speculations. 

And when history descends from tradition to monuments, from 
poetry to prose, she still continues to preserve many of those 
features, which distinguished her at her origin. There is the 
same ingenuousness, the same freshness of feeling, the same 
readiness to wonder and to admire. The descriptions are clear 
and animated, and each is given with its own peculiar character- 
istics about it, like studies from the life. The language too, is 
full of vigor and of truth. The very words have an air of fresh- 
ness about them. The images seem to spring up of themselves, 
with a life and a fragrance, which show how rich the soil was, in 
which they found birth ; and the whole moves on with an 
unbroken, spontaneous flow, reflecting, like the waters of an 
unrufiled stream, every object by which they pass, and yet so 
limpid and so pure, that you can almost count the pebbles over 
which they roll. But with all this in common with poetry, there 
is a near approach to the appropriate form of history, a clear 
perception of some of the higher duties of the historian. Tra- 
dition and hearsay are given for what they are worth ; well- 
authenticated facts are related with precision and conviction, 
like things which the writer had taken pains to examine, before he 
ventured to accept them. There is an eagerness of curiosity, 
which leads him to push his inquiries in every direction, and a 
love of truth, which makes him anxious about their results. 
There is an evident consciousness too, of the dignity of his office, 
which however, he still shares with the poet, for history is still 
the offspring of imagination and feeling, of admiration for the 
past, rather than of a deep interest in the future. The age of 



6 

thought and generalization has not yet come. Such was Herod- 
otus, whom the ironical skepticism of the last century condemned 
as a credulous story-teller, but to whom the juster criticism and 
more extensive observation of our own, have confirmed the 
glorious title of " Father of history." 

The place of the historian is now decided. His pen becomes 
like the poet's lyre, the awarder of praise and of blame ; of 
ignominy and of renown. The assembled multitude listen to his 
voice as once to the songs of their bards, and ratify his decision 
by their applause. But there is a gravity in those decisions, an 
earnestness in that view of the past, which distinguish them from 
those of the poet, and they who consider them attentively, will 
find there the elements of a still higher progress, hidden as yet 
amid the foliage, but fast ripening to maturity. To observe and 
record is the first step ; to scrutinize and compare is its necessary 
consequence. 

Now, then, the historian will come to his task with the earnest- 
ness of a man, who knows how great a responsiljility he is about 
to assume. He will look carefully around him before he chooses 
his subject, and study it in all its bearings before he takes up 
his pen. He, too, will endeavor to solve for himself some of 
those painful questions of the past, and go back to those ages, 
in which the origin of social life lies hidden in mystery and 
doubt. But he will study them from a new point of view, and 
subject them to a new standard of criticism. The clouds, amid 
which heaven and earth seemed to meet, will be dissolved. 
Heroes and demi-gods will be brought down to the ordinary 
measure of humanity, and the gods, withdrawing to their divine 
abodes, leave room for the action of natural causes. The facts, 
Avhich enter more immediately into his subject, will be carefully 
examined and scrupulously weighed. Characters will be studied, 
both as manifestations of individual power and as expressions of 
their age ; as acting upon others by their own innate force, and 
as subject in turn to all the influences, that are in action around 
them. Events will no longer stand apart, like insulated occur- 
rences, independent of each other and unproductive, but follow 
close upon each other's footsteps, and cling together by that 



beautiful law of causes and efifects, which he will follow up through 
its most intricate mazes, and bind around them with philosophi- 
cal rigor. This law, too, will be his guide in the selection of his 
incidents, showing him which are worthy of record, and which 
may be passed over as neither characteristic nor prolific. Care- 
fully tracing each question to its source, he will deduce from each 
its lesson of moral and political wisdom, and generalize them into 
laws. His style will be grave, severe and earnest, full of energy 
and conviction, pregnant with thought, like that of a man wholly 
absorbed in his subject, and flowing Avith a full, deep and impet- 
uous current. Such was Thucydides, through whom history 
first added to her title of " Recorder of the past," the nobler 
appellation of " Teacher of political wisdom." 

Henceforth history becomes an art, a solace for some minds, 
and for others a field of action, or a compensation for inactivity. 
Hence the love with which the first chng to the past, dwell 
upon its records, linger around its monuments, exalt its virtues, 
magnifying, by their veneration, those deeds, which shine with 
so imposing a grandeur through the mists of time. And hence, 
too, the deep feehng, the abundant thought, the depth, the pre- 
cision, the far-reaching views and the intensity of the second. 

But whatever be the historian's immediate motive, and how- 
ever remote the age which he attempts to illustrate, his writings 
will always contain the most accurate and faithful picture of his 
own. Nor is this surprising ; for history, even when confined to 
simple narrative, is made up of judgments ; judgments of men, 
of actions, of events ; in all of which the strongest individuality 
is more or less modified by the spirit of the age. All the his- 
torian's inquiries are directed by the same spirit, and are 
attempts to solve those questions in the social and political con- 
dition of former times, which are the chief object of attention 
in his own. His silence even, often goes further than the most 
labored paragraph, as when we are told that only a single senator 
perished in the second sack of Rome, and ask, — what the histori- 
ans of that age never thought of asking, — but where were the 
people ? The further, therefore, that civilization is advanced, 
the more important becomes the office of the historian ; the 



wider the field of general knowledge, the more extensive the 
range of philosophical inquiry, by so much the more is his sphere 
enlarged and his responsibilities increased. The curiosity which 
in one age, rests satisfied with a simple narrative of events, 
demands, in another, an exposition of their causes and their 
results ; and extending by degrees, from minute details to gen- 
eral views, from statistical data to philosophic generalization, 
arrives, at last, at the production of a living picture of society, 
in all its varied forms, and a recognition of the great spirit of 
humanity, which pervades and gives life to them all. 

Who were the auditors of Homer ? The young and the old, 
women and children, for he addressed himself to the feelings of 
every age, and touched every cord of the human heart. It is 
but a trifling effort of imaguiation, to see him, as the great artist 
has drawn him, in the midst of that varied crowd, with his 
lyre upon his knee and his head raised upward, while, like 
Milton's, 

"his sightless balls are rolled in vain, 
To find light's piercing ray, and find no dawn ; " 

and close around him crowd the warrior, with his sword half 
drawn, and the mother clasping her infant to her bosom, and 
boys, with their ardent eyes glowing with emulation and hope, 
and the old man exulting to think that he too has shared in such 
scenes, and yet half saddened by the reflection, that he can never 
share in them again. 

And the same picture would, with a very few alterations, apply 
to Herodotus. But what a change from this scene of life and 
movement and progress, where every word drops like a precious 
seed, ready to spring up with tenfold increase, to the reader of 
Gregory of Tours, the monk in his cloister. The warm sunlight 
streams into his vaulted cell, but can scarcely give a glow to the 
cold and naked walls. A bed, a table and a chair are its only 
furniture, and the only sound that breaks in upon its silence, is 
the murmur of the fountain in the court below, or the footsteps 
of some brother, resounding in hollow echoes through the long 
corridor, or, perhaps, the bell, sending out its solemn summons 



to prayer. His volume lies beside the crucifix, partly supported 
by his breviary, and as he reads, he, from time to time, raises his 
eyes, with a pious ejaculation, or crosses himself in holy horror. 
And he reads, because he finds there the record of the glories 
to which he aspires, the sufie rings of martyrs, the miracles of 
saints, the strongman bowing to the weak, the mailed warrior to 
the mitre and the cowl, the trials and the triumphs of the 
church. 

In an age, therefore, like our own, it was natural to expect 
that history would receive a new and more perfect development, 
and be distinguished by the variety and the richness of its forms. 
Never, since the final catastrophe of the Roman empire, had 
Europe been shaken by so general and so deep a convulsion, as 
that, which marked the close of the last century, and has extended 
its influence so far into our own. Institutions had been sub- 
verted, governments overthrown, old classes violently destroyed, 
and new ones called into existence ; prejudices rooted up, which 
had been consecrated by time, and principles, which seemed too 
bold, even for speculation, assumed as the rule of action and the 
basis of social organization ; wars too, such as the world had never 
seen before, and battles which unpeopled provinces between the 
rising and the setting of a sun ; and the violence of party, and the 
furies of faction, and new forms of tyranny and wilder excesses 
of freedom ; and miraculous success and unexampled reverses ; 
and wonderful manifestations of genius, and humiliating proofs of 
human frailty. More than once, there was a lull in the tempest, 
when they, who had struggled to the shore, turned back to gaze 
on the perilous waters, and repeat to themselves and to one 
another, the story of their trials and their escape. And when 
all, at length, was over, and the men of a new generation, min- 
gled with the survivors of this stormy period, began to look 
around them upon the new aspect of society, the first question 
that arose upon every lip, was, how does this compare with the 
past ? Is it worth all that has been sacrificed in order to obtain 
it? 

But the spirit which presided over this inquiry was no longer 
that which had hitherto guided the historian's pen, poetic feeling, 
2 



10 

or learned curiosity, or political speculation ; but a necessity of 
discovering the truth in all its purity, however painful, or how- 
ever revolting. Everything was so full of doubt and contradic- 
tion ; the same events and the same characters had been painted 
in such different colors ; there was so much that was unnatural 
and so much that was obscure, that earnest minds were oppressed 
by a painful anxiety, a sense of restlessness, springing partly 
from dread and partly from doubt, and which conviction alone 
could remove. Thus all the monuments of the past were to be 
studied anew and from a new point of view. How many questions 
were to be asked of that mysterious past, which had never been 
ashed of it before ? How many truths of deep import were to be 
drawm forth from neglected fragments ? By what singular com- 
binations, by what varieties of accidents, by what a beautiful chain 
of causes and effects, were we to be led back to the origin in a dim 
and remote antiquity of the phenomena of our own days, and what 
a flood of light was to be shed around them by the discovery ? 

And, first of all, the picture Avas to be complete, embracing 
every class and grade, and extending to the minutest details of 
social organization. Institutions w^ere to be studied, both in 
themselves and in their relations ; as individual manifestations, 
and as the characteristics of a pecuhar phase of social develop- 
ment ; in their immediate action and in the long series of results, 
by which they have connected themselves with posterity. All 
the great questions of the social sciences were to be discussed 
anew, and in the presence of those momunents to which all par- 
ties appealed so confidently. New problems of character were 
to arise from this discussion, and man to appear m a variety of 
novel and unexpected lights. A new science too, w^as to preside 
over this inquiry, detecting amid these varieties and apparent 
contradictions, the same great principle of unity, and by a pow- 
erful generalization, reducing all the phenomena of social life to 
their invariable laws. And, above all, that greatest result of 
history, that purest and noblest spring of human actions, the sub- 
lime spirit of humanity was to be made the test of all these 
researches, and every age, and nation, and individual, as it passed 
in calm review before the eye of the historian, to be called to 



11 

a solemn account for its good and its evil, for all that it had 
done and all that it had left undone, in the cause of humanity. 

The general direction which had thus been given to historical 
studies, was deeply modified by the various complexions of indi- 
vidual minds. Some sought in history the confirmation of a 
theory, and consequently viewed every fact through this danger- 
ous medium. Some going back to the original sources, painted 
events as they found them recorded by those who had shared in 
them, interweaving with their narrative those general laws which 
may be deduced from particular incidents, and the most impor- 
tant facts in the progress of institutions and of society. For 
others, history was not a record merely, but a reproduction of the 
past, Avith all the details of public and social life, and all those 
nice gradations of light and shade which give color and animation 
to the scene. 

But how is this to be attained ? By a simple narrative, says 
one, continuous, unbroken, a faithful reflection of the sources 
from whence it is drawn, and wearing throughout, the coloring of 
the age which it records. But your own age too, says another, 
must find its expression there, or you renounce all the advantages 
of progressive civilization, and fail in one of the highest duties of 
your ofiice. The chronicler may record, but the historian must 
judge. A simple record of eflects is but a barren tribute, unless 
you miite with it an exposition of their causes, and classing each 
under its appropriate head, ascend through them by the aid of 
general principles, to those remoter laws, which alone contain the 
secret of the mystery of our being, and a revelation of the des- 
tiny of mankind. 

With the first, therefore, of these two classes, it is the individ- 
ual that forms the proper subject of history. In most histories, 
the actor is lost in the action, and you are hurried from scene to 
scene and from change to change, without the means of forming 
any definite idea of the living instruments by which they are pro- 
duced. They hover over the page, they flit before you like 
shadowy forms, possessed indeed of a name, but with no local 
habitation, nothing by which you can bring them down to the 
standard of daily life, and look at them face to face as fellow 



12 

men. But in the writers of this school, the individual fills up 
the whole stage, and events interest you only inasmuch as they 
concern him. Whatever is done, he is constantly there, the cause 
and the ohject of all. And he comes before you not as an indis- 
tinct, indefinite generalization, but as a living being, with all his 
human errors and all his personal peculiarities about him. You 
look upon his brow, thoughtful and grave, or radiant and open ; 
his eyes calm, perhaps, in repose, but kindhng with action ; the 
smile that plays around his hps, or the stern decision that con- 
tracts them ; you Hsten to his voice ; you see him move, liis gait, 
his air, his gesture, and following him into the minutest details 
of private life, the cut and color of his dress, his sayings at the 
social board, and his bearing in the domestic circle. Thus the 
age is reproduced by means of the individual, who becomes its 
characteristic expression, a spirit called up from among the dead, 
and appearing in all the reality of its human existence, to tell us 
what and how the men of his times were. And when you close 
the volume you feel as if you had known them all, had hved, had 
acted with them, had shared in their fears, had partaken of their 
hopes, had felt, thought, and judged as they judged and felt, and 
thought. 

It is the history of the species, and not that of the individual, 
that you must look for in the Avriters of the second class. No 
single form, however majestic, is allowed to fill up the canvass. 
Particular individuals may still keep their proper places. Great 
events may still be represented by single names, but that which 
overshadows and comprises all, is that general conception of 
humanity of which individuals and even ages are but the transient 
and ever- varying types. For, however various the aspects under 
which the individual may appear, the leading characteristics of 
the race are ever the same, and each, as a whole, is no less 
clearly distinguished from all others, than one indi^ddual from 
another. It is as a whole, therefore, that it should be studied, if 
we would form a correct idea of its importance in the great scale 
of humanity. Taken as such, its unity is perfect. A general 
harmony pervades it, and blends in one accordant whole, all the 
various and apparently disconnected parts which enter into its com- 



13 

position. It assumes the dramatic aspect of a single life, and 
ages with all their changes, and society in all its complex relations, 
may be drawn with the justness of proportion and truth of color- 
ing, which seemed to belong only to the individual. Thus the 
laws of the moral universe are brought to light, the present is 
connected more intimately and more directly with the past, and 
we are reconciled, by the lesson of history, to a thousand things, 
which, when considered as insulated facts, filled our minds with 
doubt and dismay. 

And if it were not digressing too far, I would pause for a 
moment to remark the singular accord which prevails between the 
historical schools of our age, and the schools of art ; so true is it 
that history is ever in harmony with the spirit of the age, contri- 
buting by her lessons to the fulness of its development, and pre- 
serving all its characteristic features in her forms. For on Avhat 
is the natural school of Bartohni founded, but the individual? 
And how clearly does that broader generalization which, in history, 
has grouped men by races, appear in those wonderful works of 
Thorwaldsen ! 

But the march of history, whether represented by the uidivid- 
ual, or by the species, is governed by fixed laws, and attended by 
phenomena, which recur with astonishing regularity in periods 
separated, and apparently disconnected by long intervals. What 
then is the nature of these laws ? How far are we bound by 
them ? Wliat room do they leave for the voluntary exercise 
of our faculties? Is man a free though a dependent being, 
guided by his own judgment, the controller, if not the creator of 
his own destiny ? Or is he the blind instrument of a superior 
power, borne along by an irresistible impvdse, through events 
which he cannot control, and toward results which he cannot com- 
prehend ? Whenever we look upon liistory from too close a 
point of view, we see none but individuals ; men and events, 
alike insulated and ahke independent ; men guided by their own 
passions, and events produced by the action of these passions. 
A fearful responsibihty seems to weigh upon every member of 
the human family, attending upon all his movements, following 
him through all the periods of his existence, and inscribing upon 



14 

his tomb a benediction or a curse, each equally the fruit of his 
own actions. The revolutions of empires are produced by his 
ambition ; war and conquest are but the consequences of his over- 
bearing pride, or of his insatiable avidity ; each new discovery in 
science, and every ncAv progress in art seem to spring from indi- 
vidual eiforts, and to find their appropriate expression in a proper 
name ; and all the purest hopes and brightest promises of civiliza- 
tion seem dependent upon the caprices of individual will. 

But if we look from a higher point of view, and embrace a 
more extended range of observation, so as to comprise in one 
continuous whole, the liistory of every age and of every nation, 
we shall discover amidst this apparent insulation, certain general 
principles, and invariable laws, which increase in intensity the 
nearer we trace them to their source, till the whole field of his- 
tory becomes comprised in their dominion, and the individual, 
with all his ennobling attributes and terrifying responsibilities, 
disappears from the scene. Time becomes like that mysterious 
stream, which our own great artist has so beavitifully painted, 
rising up from the dim recesses of a gloomy cavern, and winding 
its way successively between flowery banks, and through long 
reaches of verdant woodland, till rushing headlong downwards 
through rocks and shoals, it loses itself in the shoreless ocean of 
eternity ; while man, like the fragile bark of the hours, and its 
human occupant, is borne ])lindly onward by the irresistible cur- 
rent, smihng, hoping, trembling by turns, and alike deceived, and 
alike powerless in his hopes and in his fears. 

How shall we reconcile these apparent contradictions, and 
mete out to man and to the laws by which he is governed, their 
appropriate measure of responsiljility in the great events of 
history? How shall we escape that benumbing individuality, 
which pursues us like a spectre, from the cradle to the grave ? 
Or where shall Ave find a refuge from the laws of an inexorable 
destiny? With every inward glance, we see that we stand alone. 
Every step in life revfeals our dependence on a superior power. 
In independent action, we feel the sublimity of our moral nature, 
and are roused to greater efforts, and more elevated conceptions. 
In the control of external laws, we find a relief from our insula- 



15 

tion, and are soothed by the belief in the harmonious concurrence 
of the past and the present, of man and of nature. 

But it is not to the individual alone that this question presents 
itself. Nations, like individuals, have their responsibilities and 
their destiny, their youth and their manhood ; there is old age for 
all, and for many decay and death. And like individuals, they 
perfoiTH by far the greater portion of their allotted task uncon- 
sciously. The interest of the day is too often a veil betAveen 
them and the morrow, through wliich their feeble sight seldom 
attempts to pierce, and it is only when some earthquake comes to 
rend it, that they think of what lies beyond. They mark out 
their course and follow it, and when the child treads in his 
father's footsteps, they call it wisdom. An experienced pilot may 
sometimes take the helm, avoid a shoal on one side and a rock on 
the other, and endeavor to read in the clouds that he sees 
gathering in the far off horizon, the signs of the tempest or the 
calm; bvit still the resistless current sweeps him on, by rock and 
by shoal, through calm and through tempest, his horizon widening 
before him as he is hurried onward, and new scenes and new 
objects presenting themselves in rapid succession, till he is borne 
at length to some distant shore, of whose existence he had never 
dreamed. 

The most remarkable illustration of this is to be found in 
ancient history. Never was there a people more confident of its 
destiny than the Roman, and never one which set itself more 
earnestly to its task, or followed it up Avith such untiring per- 
severance. What it believed that destiny to be, one of their own 
poets has told us, in some of the noblest verses of his own noble 
tongue. 

" Excudeut alii spiraiitia mollius cera, 
Credo equidem ; vivos ducent de raarmore vulius ; 
Orabunt causas melius, ccelique meatus 
Describent radio et surgentia sideradicent. 
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento ; 
Hse tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem, 
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." 

And this destiny was accomphshed in almost its fullest extent, 
far more fully than that of any other nation, which fills up so 



16 

broad a space in human annals. But when the end came, and 
Uke all men's fabrics, this great empire fell, it was seen that 
this extent of dominion was after all, but a secondary object, 
a mere condition in the fulfilment of the still higher part, 
which this people had been chosen to perform. Ancient civil- 
ization had reached its highest point, and could go no farther. 
Art and hterature, beauty of form and beauty of expression had 
been carried so far by the Greeks, that little else had been left 
for the Romans than to follow these guides closely, even for the 
expression of their o^^ai sterner sentiments. At the side of these 
beautiful foi-ms, had arisen that wonderful fabric of the Roman 
law, the silent growth of centuries, which the accumulated expe- 
rience of subsequent ages has approved, and philosophy confirmed 
as the language of written reason. These seeds had been scat- 
tered far and wide, and taken root wherever they fell. Virgil 
was as familiar on the banks of the Seine as in the streets of his 
favorite Parthenope. The Imperial rescript was received mth as 
much veneration in London and Antioch as in the Roman forum. 
The barriers, which had separated, and so many of which still con- 
tinue to separate the nations, were broken down, and although 
those original distinctions of race, which no time can wholly efface, 
were still preserved, yet all felt that they were bound together 
by common ties as members of one great Empire. And so surely 
had these seeds taken root, that when the bond was forcibly torn 
asunder, and the "ploughshare fiercely driven" over the spot 
where they had bloomed, till no trace of its former lovehness 
remained, with the first lull of repose, they silently worked their 
way upward from their hiding places in the depths of the earth, 
and sending out their roots into the fresh soil which had been 
heaped upon them, came forth again to the light of day, with all 
the freshness and the vigor of a new creation. 

And at the same time, that complemental principle of civih- 
zation, to which all its other developments are but tributary, with- 
out which, the most favored nations soon reach their utmost Umits, 
and ^\ith Avhich, the feeblest, though they may sufier much and 
languish long, can never wholly perish, Christianity was revealed 
to mankind, when the utter insufiiciency of philosophy to meet 



17 

the wants of their moral nature had been demonstrated so clearly, 
and their union into one great body had prepared the Avay for 
diffusing it with such rapidity over so vast an extent. What 
obstacles would it not have encountered a centiuy before ? How 
much more naturally would it spread from Judea, a Roman pro- 
\Tnce, into sister provinces, than from an independent kingdom 
into a hostile territory ? How much more directly did it address 
itself to the wants of a people bent under the tyranny of a 
Roman Emperor, than to the haughty citizens of an ambitious 
and warlike repubhc? 

And thus the double destiny of Rome was accomphshed, the 
preservation of the precious results of ancient civihzation, and 
the more rapid diffusion of Christianity. Yet how would C^sar, 
with all the intensity of his intellectual nature, have smiled, had 
some newly deciphered page of the sibyl's mysterious volume, 
told him for whose kingdom he was conquering the Gauls ! Or 
how little would even the vast mind of Tully have comprehended 
to what results, those beautiful speculations, in which he sought 
rehef from the cares of the Senate house, and the tumult of the 
Forum, were ine^atably leading. 

And the reason of this is very evident. They had hved too 
near the beginning to form any just conception of the end. Rich 
as the developments of ancient civilization were, they were still 
confined to a narrow field. Beyond the hmits of Greece, all 
nations, for the Greeks were barbarians, and the haughty Roman 
acknowledged no civilization but his own and that of Greece. 
Thus, in his view, the only legitimate existence was that of 
Rome, and as the other nations were successively absorbed in 
the Roman Empire, they lost the power of expressing whatever 
they might have retained of their original individualitv, and 
instead of acting upon the Roman mind by some new manifest- 
ation of intellectual energy, adopted the models of their masters, 
as they had adopted their laws, and strove to thmk and write like 
Romans. Rome gained much by the accession, and it was by 
this successive introduction of new elements, that her existence 
was prolonged far beyond its natural limits. But ci\ilization was 
confined by it to one form, and the life of the old world continued 
3 



18 

to the last as it had begun, the hfe of the state. It was for this 
that the Roman lived, and for this, at any moment, it was his 
glory and his pride to die. Cicero weeping in exile, though 
Greece and Asia were open to him, and the love of good men 
went with him wherever he turned his steps, is perhaps the most 
perfect type of ancient civilization. His Avhole life had been 
devoted to the state ; his eyes had been fixed upon that alone, till 
his great mind had been narrowed down to this horizon, and his 
limited vision could no longer discern either the individual within 
it, or humanity beyond. 

Ten miles to the south-east of Rome there stands, like a bound- 
ary wall, on the edge of the Campagna, a mountain, whose long, 
sweeping slopes were thrown up by earth(|uakes and volcanoes, in 
that remote period, in which the absence even of tradition, is sup- 
plied by the divinations of science. Its wooded cone, and parts 
of its soft outline may be seen from every hill of Rome, and 
you naturally turn to it as a landmark, in tracing out the ruins of 
the Campagna. When the traveller has completed his study of 
details, he often comes here to classify his observations, and clear 
up liis doubts, by a general survey of tlie wdiole scene. The first 
half hour of his ascent leads him through vineyards and olive 
orchards, with here and there patches of rich meadow land smil- 
ing between, and as his eye lingers upon the beauties that sur- 
round the path, he hardly thinks of turning to the other objects, 
which each step is bringing within the compass of his constantly 
expanding horizon. But soon begin the toil and labor of his way. 
The pathway grows rugged and steep, in parts awful with preci- 
pices and impendhig chffs, and in others offering you tantalizing 
glimpses of some lovely spot, which you cannot recognize, because 
it stands alone, or opening through the trees, in some vista which 
stretches far away, to an horizon that never seemed so remote 
before. At length, a turn in the path, and a few minutes of rapid 
ascent bring you out upon a green platform, Avhere the whole 
landscape, -with its cities, and rivers, and plain, bursts upon your 
view, mountains on one side and the sea on the other, Rome her- 
self but a point in the scene, and the blue sky overarching and 
spanning all. With a single glance, how many doubts dissolve 1 



19 

How naturally does each object fall into its proper place ! How 
many things shrink into mere specks ! How many others are 
brought forward in clear and distinct outlines, till the whole land- 
scape imprints itself a hving image upon the memory, with all its 
peculiar features fimily traced, and all its characteristics clearly 
defined. 

And thus is it with history ; for as well might you attempt to 
judge a landscape from the depth of a valley, as a nation Avithout 
the aid of some other history besides its own. The eye may see 
well enough what is before it, but it can see it only in its absolute 
proportions, and judge it only by itself. We cannot pretend to 
know any thing with certainty which we do not know in all its rela- 
tions, and, as in studying individual character, Ave are bound to 
study carefully the circumstances under which it Avas developed, 
so in studying the character of a nation, we are bound to take into 
our account all the influences, both from within and from without, 
which helped to make it Avhat it was. And tliis it is AA'hich renders 
what are falsely termed practical views, so dangerous in history, 
and prevents the man who has confined his studies to a single por- 
tion, no matter how important in itself, from understanding its spirit, 
even when he has mastered its details. There must be a connecting 
link to unite the development of one nation with that of another, 
and leading us from present effects to their remote causes, enable 
us also to look forward Avith a surer eye into the inevitable future. 

And this guide the doctrine of humanity supphes. Nations 
vrith tliis, take their place in time, like the objects in a landscape, 
when seen from a proper point of Adew, and races work out their 
tasks, hke the individuals of a single history. There is ample 
space too, for individual development, for all the softer and more 
human virtues. There is abundant room for those domestic vir- 
tues, which, though they flourish most in the shade, may yet give 
somewhat of their fragrance to the rougher gales, as well as to 
the gentler breezes of life ; room too, and ample reward for those 
sterner virtues, Avhich seek the broad dayhght, for the self-denial 
of science, and the self-devotion of patriotism. For that is a 
sadly distorted view of humanity, which, making us all citi- 
zens of the world, leaves us no home of our oavti. There are 



20 

instincts in man, which speak clearer than the subtlest reasoning, 
and tell him that those feehngs, which are the source of so many 
of his noblest actions, must have been implanted in his bosom by 
the same hand which gave him the power to develop them, and 
must have been implanted there for good. Woe to us, when we 
distrust these teachings of nature ; the spirit of the Deity, speak- 
ing to us with the voice of man, and repeating from age to age 
the same holy lesson, whether uttered in the joyous accents of 
hope, from the cradle of growing empire, or in the firm tones of 
confidence, from its full blown glory, or issuing an awful warning 
from its ruins ! 

I have ventured to compare the true point of view for the 
student of history, to that of the student of Roman topography, 
the summit of the Alban mount. Will you allow me to return 
for a moment to my comparison, and recall again the magnificent 
spectacle which hes spread before liim. It is indeed a glorious 
scene, and one on which the eye lingers with a melancholy pleas- 
ure, till past and present become blended, and the mind is almost 
lost in its thick coming fancies. But amid all this variety of 
mountain, and river, and plain, this loveliness of reality, and those 
solemn memorials of the past, there is nothing which stirs the heart 
of the American with a purer and stronger pulsation, than that 
Avatery line, which, gleaming in warm sunlight, on the verge of 
the horizon, shows him where the streams, wdiich flow downward 
from the old world, may take their course, and following the star 
of Empire on its western track, bear their tribute to the distant 
shores of the new. For we, too, have our share in this destiny of 
nations. The same law of progressive development, which con- 
nects the society of modern, with that of ancient Europe, connects 
us with both. The same beauties, Avhich charmed the imagination 
and purified the taste of those elder generations, are acting with 
unimpaired vigor upon ours. The same fundamental principles 
of justice, which made their way through so many channels, into 
all the codes of Europe, are daily gaining new importance in our 
own ; and many of those great truths, which have been adopted 
as the basis of our institutions, were worked out in sorrow and 
in blood by our European fathers. Instead, therefore, of claiming 



21 

as our own, this talent, which has been confided to us, let us 
rather seek to compare it as it now is, with what it was, that by 
seeing how much we have already added to it, we may learn how 
much more we still can hope to add. This is the true science of 
history ; the only effectual manner of recognizing the great 
brotherhood of nations, and performing our part for posterity, as 
our ancestors performed theirs for us. This is the feeling which 
makes men earnest ; bears them vip through despondency and 
doubt ; gives vigor to their actions by the nobleness of their aim ; 
makes them ready to pardon and slow to condemn ; teaches them 
firmness in trial and moderation in success ; which leads them to 
hope from conviction, while they act from hope ; and inspu'es 
them with that expansive and invigorating sympathy, which, 
without forgetting the duties of its birthright, recognizes in all 
things some end that is good, and in all men the image of their 
Maker. 

Legislators of Rhode Island : 

I have thus ventured, in a manner, which, I fear, may seem to 
you too desultory and disconnected, to touch upon some of the 
phases of historical science in its connection with the progress of 
society, and to glance at some of the great questions which it 
su.ggests. I would gladly have gone further, and have spoken of 
them in their connection with our own beloved country. But the 
lateness of the hour admonishes me that I have already reached 
my limits, and that the few moments that remain, must be devoted 
to the more immediate interests of the Society, in whose name I 
have the honor to address you. I shall not attempt to give you, 
even in outline, the history of our society. That task will be 
accomphshed at some future anniversary, by an abler hand. 
Neither shall I speak to you of the objects of our association ; 
for they were set forth with so much taste and elegance in the 
beautiful address with which our hall was inaugurated, that it 
would be presumption in me to do more than allude to them. 
But one thing I may venture to do, and that is, to remind you 
how vain all our efforts must be, without the active sympathy of 
our fellow-citizens. You, gentlemen, are making the history 



22 

which we are endeavoring to record, and which, while we are try- 
ing to catch a clear view of it, hurries by us, and mingles with 
the past. 

Dum loquimur fugerit invicia 

Pause then, for a moment, in this hurried flight of time, and 
see how surely all that you are doing for the present, has its cause 
and its explanation in the past. Remember how many a doubt 
has perplexed you, which a few lines, that some hand might once 
so easily have snatched from the fire, w^ould have cleared away 
in an mstant. Remember how many an hour you have passed in 
vain efforts to gather up the broken links of some neglected chain, 
a little fragment of which had been suffered to he unheeded, 
until it was lost forever. Remember by what uninscribed grave- 
stones you have stood, and vainly asked the sunken earth, whose 
ashes had mouldered in its bosom. And then, look around you^ 
and see how the present too is fading, and its records perishing 
from under our eyes. See how every day some new witness drops 
into the grave, bearing Avith him precious knowledge that can 
never be recovered again. See how much there is that from its 
nature must perish, how much that must always remain obscure, 
and then say, if you can hesitate to sympathize with us, in our 
humble efforts to preserve for our posterity, all that can still be 
preserved of those hallowed records, which miite us by so holy a 
bond to our forefathers. For of those forefathers, you hke our- 
selves are justly proud. We are all proud of what they suffered 
and of what they perfonned. We are proud that there are 
names among them which can well compare with whatever history 
records of great and of good. We are proud of the principles 
with which they consecrated the soil of our native state, and the 
firmness with which they lived by them. We glory that when 
bigotry and fanaticism were desolating the rest of the world with 
the wildest excesses, the torch of " soul hberty " first shot its 
pure rays into the gloom from the shores of Rhode Island. And 
sure of the past, with that liberty for our guide, and leaning 
firmly on our anchor of Hope, we can look forward with unwaver- 
ing trust, to the cares and the duties and the glories of the 
future. 



NOTES 



Page 1. 
The first anniversary discourse delivered before the society vpas that of 
Judge Durfee, delivered on the evening of the 13th January, 1647, on the 
philosophy of R. I. history. On the 18th of January, of the next year, 
his own life and character formed the subject of an elaborate discourse by 
Rowland G. Hazard, Esq. 

Page 8. 
One of the most beautiful of Thorwaldsen's bas-reliefs represents Homer 
very nearly as he is described in the text. 

Page 9. 
" E come quei che con lena afFannata, 
Uscito fuor del pelago alia riva. 
Si volge all' acqua perigliosa e guata." 

Dante — r Inferno — c. 1 . 
And like to him, that with deep panting breast, 
From the broad ocean to the shore escaped. 
Towards the perilous waters turns and gazes — . 
Page 14. 
Cole's ' Voyage of life.' Not that I would represent Cole as a fatalist. 
Never was a man further from it, or who united in a higher degree, christian 
humility, with confidence in the dignity of human nature. 

Page 14. 
This inexorable destiny corresponds to the noble picture of Fortuna. — 

" che i ben del mondo ha si tra branche' " 

in the VH. canto of the Inferno — 

" general ministra e duce 

Che permutasse a tempo li ben vani, 

Di gente in gente, ed' uno in altro sangue, 

Oltre la difension de' senni iimani. 

Vostro saver non ha contrasto a lei." V. V. 68-94 

And Boethius — 

" Non ilia miseros audit, baud curat fletus, 
Ultroque geniitus, dura quus facit, ridet." 
Page 21. 
Address delivered before the Rhode Island Hist. Soc, at the opening of 
their Cabinet, on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 1844, by William GammeJl, Pio- 
fessor of Rhetoric in Brown University. 



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